Thursday, March 11, 2004

I tried the new popper yesterday and immediately noticed how much more powerful the fan was. In my first attempt I used about 85g of monsooned malabar. It is the lightest (in weight) bean I've got in my green bean stock, so it immediately started to circulate and jump around in the hot rising air. No need to stir! It was so powerful however, that beans were falling out. I tried to mount the plastic hood, but it was only slightly better. The temperature didn't seem to get high enough either, probably because of the diminishing amount of beans in the chamber. I never got to second crack, even after 25 minutes of roasting. After some pondering I found a solution. I removed the bottom of an empty illy can with a can opener and mounted it on top of the chamber with aluminium foil and tape. Then I used more beans, maybe 100 grams to reduce the circulation and thereby increase the temperature. It worked a lot better. Second crack at about 9 minutes and a surprisingly even roast considering it was a monsooned malabar. I really like the fact that it is almost fire and forget, a lot easier than stirring the beans in the old popper.